Is the Amazing Karnak Trump’s auditor?

For years, Donald Trump has been one of the most overblown windbags in the financial world. Questions about how much money he actually has have circulated for decades. Now, Trump has offered some insight into why his wealth remains in question.

He relies on “mental projections.” Seriously. Somewhere, Dick Fuld, the fallen head of Lehman Brothers is kicking himself for not thinking of that one. If only he’d gotten a slot on The Apprentice so he could have learned at the feet of the master.

Here’s a sampling of how Trump’s Amazing Karnak accounting works:

"My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feeling," he told lawyers in the December 2007 deposition.

Based on this astute analysis, the Trumpster believes he’s worth more than $4 billion – in fact, about…uh…$6 billion. Yeah, that’s it.

Mr. Trump was asked whether he has ever exaggerated in statements about his properties. "I think everybody does," he said in the deposition. "Who wouldn’t?"

A follow-up question: Does that mean he inflates the value of his properties in general, nonfinancial public statements? "Not beyond reason," he said in the testimony.

Apparently, “mentally projecting” your net worth by billions of dollars isn’t, in Trump’s world, beyond reason. To the rest of us, of course, it would be known as lying.